


Forever and ever and ever

by captainhurricane



Series: Where There's a Will, There's a Wake [5]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7010170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainhurricane/pseuds/captainhurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pack deals. There's no moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever and ever and ever

"Do you ever think-"  
"Be careful, you might hurt yourself-"  
"Fuck off, Jiang, really, do you ever think that maybe, maybe it's better-"

Whatever is and might have been better in Skov's mind is stifled by a punch and a groan. Skov staggers back, a hiss slipping through chapped lips, his cigarette dropping to the ground. The night of the Fourth of July, Kavinsky's ultimate night hangs heavy around them. The skeletons of the Mitsubishis scattered around them like some gruesome cemetery of their youth.  
Jiang nurses his wounded knuckles and exhales.  
"Nothing is better, fuckface." Jiang's throat burns. What use is Aglionby for him, for any of them anymore. What use is anything anymore. 

Skov stares at him, a miserable twist to his miserable full mouth. The hollowness of Skov's gaze is as piercing as ever. He had been the best with his bruises, with his track marks, K's teeth on his neck, imprints of Swan's fingers on his hips. Skov had always let it happen: life, Kavinsky, the others, his own fucked up life. 

"We're-" Jiang tries, spreads his arms, envelopes the still night in an embrace that leaves him cold. "We're not better off without him." 

Skov smiles. Hesitant, awful in a way. He keeps tugging on the thin silver chain around his neck.  
"I didn't say that," he murmurs, clicks his tongue. He watches the way Swan shifts in his drug-induced sleep against their hollow-cheeked cars. Not even sleep chases away the frown between Swan's eyes. 

"You meant it," Jiang counters, shoves Skov. Skov wavers.  
"What about Proko?" Jiang tries when no words come from Skov anymore. Skov lits another cigarette but doesn't take a drag, lets it burn to filter between his fingers.  
"Proko had been dead forever. Whatever sleeps in the hospital isn't him," Skov murmurs, dodges Jiang's rage with the sort of lazy gracefulness that only a boy who thought himself immortal can deal with. 

The night murmurs in Kavinsky's voice. Rejoice. Rejoin me. Dance to my tune. Forever and ever and ever. Skov only needs to close his eyes to see Kavinsky's face, that manic grin, his own paleness reflected in those infuriating glasses. Yet he had been entranced. Still is. Forever and ever and ever. 

"He's still here," Jiang says and doesn't elaborate. Skov takes his hand, presses it to his mouth. Flicks his tongue over bruised knuckles. Listens to Jiang hiss.  
"Don't be angry with me, babe," Skov murmurs, drugged and hazy and dreamy, his words all Kavinsky and not Skov. Whatever and whoever Skov was and had been has slipped through the cracks and disappeared into the blur of his head. Into Kavinsky's crazy dreams, into memories of Kavinsky's nights.  
"I'm leaving Henrietta," Jiang says, curls his fingers around Skov's throat. Just lightly, just enough to see Skov's mouth curl into a grin.  
"Bye then, Jiang," Skov says and his grin is awful, awful, awful. 

Jiang slams it out of his face, wakes Swan up when they hit the ground. Swan makes some sort of a choked up noise, eyebrows raising when he sees Jiang and Skov in a tangled heap on the ground, half-fighting, half-getting to fucking because what good are words when there are holes in their lives now, punched by fire and Ronan fucking Lynch walking away without a scratch. 

Jiang bites Skov's neck until it trickles blood and drowns himself in the night that continues to whisper. _Here I am. I am here. Forever and ever and ever._


End file.
